


Falling (Off Swing Sets and into Love)

by alliebird58



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Feelings, Fluff, really just a little look at the thoughts of one Jughead Jones III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 08:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10272131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliebird58/pseuds/alliebird58
Summary: Jughead Jones has never before let Betty Cooper fall...and he isn't about to start now.





	

For the most part, Jughead Jones III is grounded in reality. He lives his life as the apathetic observer, the conscientious consumer of the world around him, and he channels the actions and behaviors of the people around him onto the pages of his books. Words, thoughts, ideas, metaphors tumble through his brain at rapid fire pace as the Earth spins on its axis. 

Being so grounded and in touch with the ways of the people around him means that he is not fanciful. He is not wont to whims or pursuits of pleasure. Most days he is more concerned with where his next meal will come from or the place he’ll be able to take a shower, rest his head, do his homework. 

If he keeps his feet firmly on the ground, settled into the solid rock of the landscape he walks, he will never fall and get hurt. That is his thinking, at least. 

But he is guilty of indulging one small, innocent pleasure. 

Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Cooper. 

They have known each other forever, a side effect of growing up with the same best friend, and so they both learned the quick and sharp lesson of sharing. The two of them were never quite friends themselves, always viewing each other as rivals for Archie’s attention, but they were civil, and eventually learned how to be coexist peacefully in the life of Archie Andrews. Betty would bring cookies over whenever they all played together, and she always gave him whatever was left at the end. 

In return Jughead would push her high on the swings at the park down by the river, until she was screeching with laughter, breathless and flushed a pretty pink, yelling, “Juggie! Juggie I’m going to fall off!”

His response was always, “I’d never let you fall, Betts,” and then his pushes would ease up, letting the pull of gravity bring her back to the ground, back to reality, back to _him_. 

But he never let her fall. 

That had been a simpler time. Before he worried about things like homes and his high school classmates being murdered and whether his oldest friend was going to continually break the heart of his other oldest friend. 

Really, Jughead knows, bone deep, a weight crushing his soul, that Betty will always and forever hold a candle for Archie Andrews. He was her very first love, and while Jughead doesn’t know much himself about the ideas of first loves and passions of the heart, he does realize that it is a memory you will never forget. 

Even with that knowledge, he finds himself drawn to her, like a moth to flame. He knows if he flies too close, he will get burned, no questions asked. But Betty…she is incandescent, shining so bright he feels the constant need to shield his eyes. She is life itself, a rainstorm in the desert, bringing water to the parched ground and breathing a rejuvenating breath of air into a suffocating landscape. 

Betty is color in a monochromatic life, splashes and swirls of pastels against a pale canvas. She is the adjectives and adverbs and the metaphors he loves, adding depth and understanding to a line of paltry prose. 

She is everything he knows and everything he doesn’t and everything he wants to learn, all wrapped up into one beautiful, delicate package. 

So it is nothing if not surprising when the artwork of Betty Cooper, who he has spent a good amount of time staring at and contemplating wistfully…starts staring back at him. 

For once, it is not about Archie or any of the other person in the world, it is simply about the two of them. It is the way she makes him smile (much against his will, as it so happens). It is the way they complement each other; he recognizes the dark shadows of his own world hidden beneath the sunshine of blonde hair and soft knit sweaters. 

It is the way their fingers lace together so easily, the way their breathing joins in synchronicity, matching their strides and their heartbeats that do not pound or race but thrum quietly in their chests. 

They walk hand in hand down the banks of the Sweetwater River as the sun shines down, rays of light dancing between the leaves of the trees to cast alternating patterns on the ground of dark and light, sunshine and shadows. The birds chirp and the river responds in its native tongue, a symphony of life that Jughead always seems to notice and appreciate more easily when he has Betty at his side. 

Somehow they wind up at the park, that same one from their childhood, and Betty smiles at him with something he doesn’t recognize, barely contained within her chest. 

“I don’t have cookies but…push me?" 

He is helpless to say no, even if he wanted to, but he never does want to say no to her. Jughead wants to breathe in the same air as Betty Cooper for as long as he possibly can. He pulls her over to the swingset, a bit rusted and a little worn, but still happy to see them. It creaks a slight protest when Betty sits, but she turns around and gives him another smile and it is like they are seven again. He pushes her higher and higher, she pumps her legs in rhythm until she is dancing in the treetops, her bright laughter soaring with the bird’s song.

"Juggie!” His name, he decides, never sounds nicer than when she says it. “Don’t let me fall!” her giggles paint the sky and fall like raindrops, soaking into his skin and he smiles. 

No, he will never let her fall.


End file.
